SustainUS is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of young people advancing sustainable development and youth empowerment in the United States. Through proactive education, research, and advocacy at the policy-making and grassroots levels, we are building a future in which all people recognize the inherent equality and interdependence of social, economic, and environmental sustainability.

Meet the SustainUS CSocD-50 delegation!

The SustainUS Agents of Change program has selected its SustainUS youth delegation to the  50th Session of the United Nations Commission for Social Development (CSocD-50), which will be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City from February 1–10, 2012.

CSocD-50 is a policy session and addresses the priority theme of “Poverty Eradication.” Selected delegates will have the opportunity to work with government officials, scientists, civil society representatives, and youth from around the world to review progress on issues related to social development. In the past, AoC delegates have presented case studies and policy statements on behalf of youth; participated in forums with fellow representatives of civil society; and met with government delegates, international organizations, and the US State Department.

Follow their tweets @SustainUSAgents and read their blogs at www.sustainus.org/blog.

Meet the delegates after the jump!

	Delegation leader Rina Kuusipalo is a student at Harvard concentrating in Social Studies, focusing on social, environmental and economic systemic change and questions of fair distribution. She has a particular interest in the transition to a more sustainable and just economy, and interned at the new economics foundation in London in the summer, working mainly on financial and banking reform in the UK and a Festival for Transition to re-imagine and act in conjunction with Rio+20. Rina grew up in Finland, but graduated high school with the IB at the United World College of the Atlantic in Wales, with students from 80 countries. There she led an initiative on trade justice, was editor of the UWC student magazine and organized Model UN. This she continues at Harvard, along with political and labor activism, being the secretary of the Environmental Action Committee, and journalism. Rina was a research assistant at the Kennedy School, writing on participatory democracy, and is fascinated by people's power to unite and fight. She also worked in the NGO Plan, New Economics Institute, a prison-tutoring program, a refugee camp in the Palestinian territories, and with community organizations in Rwanda. Rina previously attended CSocD-49, CSD-19, COP-17, and will attend CSD-20 with SustainUS, and hopes for a CSocD-50 filled with progressive ideas and substantial action.
	Sayid Abdullaev
	Ashley Eberhart is a third-year undergraduate at Princeton University, where she studies comparative politics with a concentration on entrepreneurship under conditions of disadvantage. She is also completing minors in Environmental Science, American Studies, and Urban Planning. A native of the Midwest, she became interested in environmental issues and entrepreneurial development in indigenous communities with South Dakota’s Oglala Lakota tribe as a Yale Law School Arthur Liman Summer Fellow. She continued this research in Maccarese, Italy, as a Bioversity International intern in environmental science studying the agrobiodiversity conservation strategies of indigenous populations. After graduation, Ashley hopes to pursue a career in entrepreneurial development on Native American reservations. Ultimately, she will pursue an MBA focusing on social benefit corporations, as well as a Masters in Environmental Management. At Princeton, Ashley serves as the community service chair of the undergraduate student government, leads break trips across the United States on domestic social issues, and is currently in the development stage of Pasand, a social enterprise that recycles local plant fibers in India to manufacture low-cost feminine sanitation solutions for low-income girls and young women.
	Shirley Gao hails from Davis, California. She is a junior at Princeton University majoring in public policy and minoring in global and public health. Shirley's interest in healthcare began in high school, when she wrote a letter to President Bush detailing ways the U.S. could support Millennium Development Goal 6 to halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. She is also very interested in peace and conflict resolution, and will combine her academic interests within her senior thesis on the formation of healthcare systems in post-conflict societies. On campus, Shirley leads alternative break trips, freelances professionally for local newspapers, and serves on a student board that allocates funding and advice to support civic engagement initiatives. She spent the summer of 2011 as a finance intern at the Center for Public Integrity, writing investigative journalism pieces that focused on exposing government fraud, waste, and abuse. In her free time, Shirley enjoys watching documentaries and training for adventure races - catch her at the Tough Mudder this spring!
	Michael Ginsberg is currently pursuing a Masters of Science in Sustainability Management at Columbia University. Prior to graduate school, he worked in international development and environmental protection as a program development associate for World Learning, an international development NGO, where he designed proposals for USAID and Department of State programs. Before World Learning, he implemented professional exchanges for emerging leaders from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He has also worked at the Human Rights Watch, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and InterPV, a solar energy business magazine based in South Korea. Michael is a LEED AP O+M with experience in credit documentation in the certification process for existing buildings. He just returned from a research trip to Niamey, Niger in West Africa where he witnessed crippling poverty and the nascent renewable energy efforts working to abet the situation. He is passionate about natural resource management and sustainability, particularly in developing countries, and looks forward to participating in CSocD-50.
	Erin Kiernan a native of Bronxville, NY, is a senior at Princeton majoring in Philosophy.  Erin’s interest in development began after spending the summer of 2009 in Thailand as public health research assistant for the Thai Women’s Medical Association, during which she traveled the country gathering data to evaluate the efficacy of a scholarship program on rural medicine. The following summer, Erin worked at the NGO, Educate Girls Globally, where she initiated a fundraising database, prepared marketing materials, and gathered evaluative observations and descriptive data at participating public schools and field offices in the Pali District of Rajasthan, India. On campus, Erin served as the President of Princeton Against Cancer Together and Circle of Women; was a member of The Pace Council for Civic Engagement and the Human Values Forum; and was a varsity athlete, participating on the swimming team until a career ending injury her junior year. Despite pursuing a career on Wall St. as a Sales and Trading analyst at Citi post graduation, Erin plans to maintain her passion for social development, specifically girls education, through awareness and fundraising initiatives.
	Rigoberto Eulogio Melgar is a junior at State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry majoring in Environmental Studies Policy, Planning and Law with a minor in Renewable Energy. He has been an active environmentalist since his early teen years. He loves the outdoors and anything that is related to the natural world. Rigo also likes to volunteer some of his free time to do community service.  He is involved in his College’s undergraduate student government, where he has been elected as a student Senator to represent his junior class. Rigo has faith in the governmental institutions and believes that there is hope for change in order to improve the environment and social welfare through commonsense policy. Part of his career focus is to advance and create awareness about environmental sustainability and to help in the fight against climate change around the world. His principal motto is “If you can change your mind, you can change the world.” Rigo also believes in happiness and equality for all human beings. He believes that his purpose in life is to work as hard as he can to help make the lives of all human beings better for today and future generations. Rigo recently became part of SustainUS Agents of Change program, and he will be part of the United Nations Commission for Social Development CSocD-50 delegation in February 2012, where he hopes to put his environmental sustainability knowledge at the forefront of the discussions.
	Riana Shah is currently a sophomore at Swarthmore College and is the Co-Founder & Co-Director of the education reform organization, Independent Thought & Social Action in India (ITSA India). As a high school freshman, Riana moved to the US from her home country of India attending Bard High School Early College. Coming from the Indian education system focused on regurgitation and memorization, her high school experience at Bard showed her not only how education can be different, but also how it can be can be empowering. Leading a student social action network at Bard empowered her to create ITSA India that would bring that same self-confidence to her peers in India. ITSA India is an international award winning, youth led education reform organization that creates socially responsible youth leaders through critical thinking and social action. ITSA India empowers youth to organize social action projects within their communities by providing youth with Social Action Training and mentors to help guide their project. Visit: www.facebook.com/ITSAInternational. She brings the lens of youth entrepreneurship & women’s empowerment to CSocD-50.
	Anirudh Sridhar is a Junior at SUNY school of Environment and Forestry. His romance with issues of the oppressed first flamed into life during high school when he became a proselytizer for vegetarianism and a strong advocate of Animal Rights. His first rite of passage was via Greenpeace where he was an intern and interviewed farmers across south India about the recent discrepancies in the climate and its effect on crop yield and shared his results with students across the city of Bangalore. Since his migration to the United States, he has played with (under the banner of "work") a myriad of fascinating beasts in the Everglades, and specialized in food web ecology. He is currently studying Environmental Policy, Planning and Law and wishes to frequent the UN as a delegate even after he loses the "youth" status.
	Reed Thompson works in a home weatherization program for income-eligible residents of Chicago and Cook County. While at the University of Kentucky, he worked on clean energy campaigns and sustainability outreach.  In 2011, he was a trainer at PowerShift in DC, as part of a team teaching  methods of organizing for sustainability.  He is a member of the Chicago Conservation Corps, a group of Chicago residents who lead environmental projects in their communities.
	Yi Wang, from Chengdu, China, is currently a sophomore from Bryn Mawr College, one of the Seven Sisters which values women education and empowerment. She believes in the empowerment and fulfillment of individuals and the restoration of new social relationships in community. Starting from Strait Talk Symposium, she became passionate of conflicts resolution and public mentality and identification and now serves as International Peace Projects Coordinator for the organization. Yi has ample experiences of NGOs in China, Taiwan, South Korea and US. She is always eager to learn how civil society interacts with other social sectors to make changes. Just back from a visit to Korea Democracy Foundation and observation research of Taiwan presidential election, she is now particularly interested in democratization in East Asia. Yi Hopes to learn more about the social and cultural aspects of poverty eradication and the possible social changes, especially those of mindset, after poverty is alleviated.

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